Tempted by Trouble

by Liz Fielding

They sped through the narrow, winding private lanes of the estate that visitors never saw before pulling into the parking area in front of a big old barn surrounded by a wild flower meadow. But not the workaday barn she’d imagined when he’d told her where Basil garaged Rosie.

  One end had a pair of high double doors, sure enough, but two-thirds of it had been converted into a stunning home, with high windows looking out across the river. The kind of home that was often featured in upmarket homes and gardens magazines.

  ‘Okay. First things first,’ Sean said, wasting no time in heading for the business end of the van. ‘The generator. It powers the lights, the freezer for the lollies and the ice cream machine.’

  She watched while he switched it on, then took Rosie’s Diary from her bag, carefully listing each stage of the procedure in the notes section at the back.

  ‘I haven’t got any lollies.’

  ‘I imagine Basil picks up a supply from the cash and carry before each gig. You have to take them out when you’ve finished and keep them in a freezer, so you don’t want to buy more than you need for immediate use.’

  ‘Right.’

  She started a second list. Lollies. She needed to count the stock she had. Would she have enough for all the bookings Basil had made?

  Sean switched off the generator. ‘Okay, now you try.’

  She started it, following her notes to make sure she hadn’t missed anything. It wasn’t difficult, but he wasn’t going to be around when she did this for real tomorrow.

  ‘Got it. Now what?’

  He showed her where to pour in the mixture, watched while she opened a carton and filled the tank.

  ‘That seems simple enough.’

  ‘It’ll take fifteen minutes before you can deliver an ice cream. Just time for a sandwich and a cup of coffee,’ he told her.

  He didn’t wait, but jumped down, unlocked the door to the barn and disappeared inside.

  Elle found him in the kitchen. There were no units, just solid wooden furniture and shelves, rather like the old-fashioned kitchen at Gable End that had, thankfully, escaped a nineteen-fifties make-over and was now back in fashion. The only difference was that Sean’s did not bear the evidence of generations of use. And his big American fridge wasn’t decorated with fridge magnets holding photographs, messages, the shopping list.

  Sean put the kettle on the Aga, took a loaf from a wooden bread bin. ‘Cheese and pickle?’

  Her stomach rumbled loudly at the prompt and without warning he grinned. ‘I’ll take that as a yes.’

  It had been hours since the breakfast she’d thrown up and she suddenly felt hollow. Which no doubt accounted for all the wobbly leg stuff, the tendency to tears. She was just plain hungry.

  ‘Can I help?’ she offered.

  ‘You’ll find butter and cheese in the pantry,’ he said, slicing the bread.

  She fetched them, washed her hands, then buttered the bread while Sean sliced the cheese. He looked sideways at her. ‘You’ve done that before.’

  ‘I’ve made a few sandwiches in my time,’ she admitted. ‘Pulled a few pints.’

  ‘Tossed a few rolls into diners’ laps?’

  ‘Jill of all trades, that’s me,’ she said, suddenly remembering the message he’d left for her. That Freddy hadn’t given her and had denied ever seeing. ‘Only particularly annoying customers get food thrown at them, though.’

  ‘I’ll bear that in mind.’ Then, as he spooned coffee into a cafetière, ‘What were you going to study at college? Before everything went pear-shaped?’

  ‘Cooking.’ She pulled a face. ‘Somewhat ironic under the circumstances.’

  ‘Tragic, I’d have said. So, what was the dream?’

  ‘Dream?’ she repeated, as if she’d never heard the word, never sat there, pretending, at the table she used as a desk…

  ‘You must have had one. Your own restaurant? A Michelin star by the time you were twenty-five? Television chef?’

  ‘Good grief, nothing that grand.’

  He looked at her. ‘No,’ he said with a smile. ‘That’s not you at all.’

  ‘Oh, thanks.’

  ‘You would have dreamed of something warm, cosy—’

  ‘If you must know,’ she cut in before he could make things any worse, ‘I had my heart set on an elegant little restaurant for ladies who lunch. Cloths on the table. Morning coffee. Simple lunches. Afternoon tea with freshly made sandwiches, scones, exquisite cakes. Good service.’

  ‘Nostalgia squared.’

  ‘Be careful what you wish for,’ she said, layering on the cheese while Sean opened the pickle jar. ‘Right now, I’ve got all the nostalgia I can handle.’

  ‘Don’t knock it. The estate shop makes a tidy profit from people who want jars of pickle, conserves that look as if their great-grandmother made them,’ he said.

  She glanced at the one he had opened, which bore a supermarket’s own label. ‘Not you, obviously.’

  ‘I didn’t have that kind of great-grandmother,’ he said, slathering it onto the cheese. ‘But plenty of people seem to go for it despite the high price tag.’

  He fetched a couple of plates and mugs while she sliced the sandwiches neatly in half, then cleared up and wiped down on automatic.

  ‘Do you want to take those outside?’ he asked, pouring water on the coffee. ‘I’ll bring the mugs.’

  ‘Don’t trust me with anything that hot, hmm?’

  ‘Am I that transparent?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said, laughing. Then, unable to stop herself, ‘At least on the surface.’ She wished she’d kept quiet, but he was looking at her, waiting. ‘You’re quick to empathise, Sean, but you keep yourself hidden. I haven’t a clue what you’re thinking right now.’

  For a second he was shocked into silence, then he said, ‘Of course you have. I’m thinking that it’s lunchtime and I’m hungry.’

  ‘Point proved, I think,’ she said, picking up plates and leaving him to follow with the coffee.

  She walked through a room that rose high above her to the exposed beams of the barn. The floor was polished oak, the furniture was large, comfortable, old. The walls were pale to provide a simple backdrop for a dark Impressionist painting of a distant hill that was a prominent local landmark.

  It had a clean, spare beauty that was in total contrast to the clutter of Gable End. A simplicity that gave away absolutely nothing about the man who lived there. No photographs. No treasures picked up on life’s journey. No memories, no family. Except that wasn’t right.

  He’d told her that Basil had taken Rosie to his niece’s birthday party. And a niece meant he had a brother or sister.

  She opened high French windows that led out onto a paved terrace overlooking the river. The midday sun was sparkling on the water and, ignoring a couple of ancient Adirondack chairs that were placed side by side close enough for two people to reach out and hold hands, she followed a stepped path that curved away down to the river and a small dock.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Forget love. I’d rather fall in ice cream.

  —Rosie’s Diary

  SEAN took his time over the coffee. The lesson, he reflected, was never to ask a question to which you didn’t want to hear the answer. He was practised at that. Good at keeping things light. People at a distance. Never digging beneath the surface to find out what made them tick. Taking care never to expose his own inner thoughts or feelings.

  Elle challenged that in him. She told him stuff that he didn’t want to know. Intimate, private stuff that seeped into his psyche, settled in the small dark spaces of his mind that had been left unoccupied. Stirring up the dust, disturbing the cobwebs.

  He’d walked away from her yesterday, determined to stay away until Saturday morning. At the garden party, he rationalised, they’d be too busy to do more than pass out ice creams, take the money. And she’d be off to work as soon as he’d dropped her off and brought Rosie back to the barn.

  Except Rosie wasn’t coming back with him. And El
le was here right now.

  He’d walked away, determined to put time and distance between them, but she’d come with him, lodged in his mind, stirring his body in ways that refused to be ignored. Driving him from his bed in the early hours to sit on the dock, his feet in the cold water of the river.

  She’d been there when he woke.

  His first thought had been of Elle, wondering what she was doing. How it would feel to turn and see her lying beside him. Hair tumbled over her pillow, lips soft, her lashes lying against her cheek. Every part of her totally relaxed in the total trust of complete surrender that letting go of consciousness in the presence of another person involved. It was why he never stayed overnight with any woman but always slept alone in his own bed. Refusing to give up that control to anyone.

  It was why he’d fled the back of the van the minute they’d set the ice cream in action, leaving her to follow or not as she chose.

  The memory of their last encounter in that small space was too vivid. The desire too intense.

  He picked up the mugs. It would pass.

  It always passed. His father, his half-brothers and-sisters demonstrated the fact on a regular basis. They were not a family with any emotional staying power.

  And Elle was an emotional minefield. Best avoided but, if that was impossible, to be handled at long distance with the utmost caution.

  He followed her through the living room, expecting to find her stretched out on one of the chairs on the terrace. But no. Typically, she’d ignored the obvious option and was down on the dock, leaning back, propped up on her hands, face to the sun, shoes off and legs dangling over the edge. Invading his space and filling his head with images that he wouldn’t be able to get out of his mind. That would stay with him, haunt him, torment him.

  She turned as the boards moved under his feet. ‘This is lovely,’ she said. ‘Not what I expected.’

  He didn’t ask her what she’d expected.

  ‘Do you fish?’ she asked.

  He shook his head. ‘I leave that to the kingfishers. That’s why the grass is left to grow over the bank so that there are shady places for the fish to hide.’ Keep to the practical. He could handle that.

  ‘I’ve never seen a kingfisher.’

  ‘You have to be quiet. Still. Lie up in the grass further along the bank…’ Instantly, his mind filled in the picture of the two of them lying in the long grass, touching close, waiting. And afterwards… After the vivid flash of blue, the kiss that would follow. And everything else.

  No! The answer to her question was just… No. Keep it simple. Keep your distance.

  ‘So why the dock?’ she asked. ‘The rowing boat?’ And, gratefully, he seized on that.

  ‘The dock was built to ship grain and wood down the river to Melchester. This is a tributary to the River May,’ he added. ‘As for the boat, I use it to keep an eye on what’s happening with the wildlife, particularly the water voles and otters.’

  ‘You’ve got otters here?’ Her eyes lit up, sparking a dangerously hot response.

  ‘They’re making a comeback,’ he said, sitting on the far side of the plates she’d set down beside her, using them as a safety barrier between them.

  Better.

  He bit into the sandwich they’d made together. Filling his mouth with food to keep himself from saying something stupid. Like inviting her to spend the afternoon with him. Offering to show her where the kingfishers were raising a family in a muddy hole in the riverbank.

  Elle groaned as she took the hint and took a bite of her own sandwich, keeping nothing back. She said what was on her mind, her expression betrayed her every thought, drawing him in. Raising questions.

  ‘Good?’ he asked.

  ‘Blissful. Wonderful cheese.’

  ‘It’s made in our dairy,’ he said. ‘We do good business in the farm shop.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Developing income streams so that the house is self-sustaining is part of my job. We supply our home farm dairy products direct to the big London stores as well as local outlets,’ he elaborated.

  ‘So where do the vintage motors come in?’

  ‘Nowhere. There were all sorts in barns and outbuildings all over the estate. Classic cars, farm machinery, old tractors. I was going to sell them off, but then realised that they could be a useful attraction. You’ve seen one Tudor beam, you’ve seen them all,’ he said with a grin.

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘Sorry if I misled you. I did find an old Morris that I got working one summer when I was about fourteen,’ he offered. ‘I taught myself to drive on the back roads of the estate.’

  ‘Taught yourself?’

  ‘No one knew I had the car. I hid it here. The barn was a wreck back then. Abandoned.’

  A mallard with a flotilla of fluffy ducklings spotted them and came scurrying over.

  ‘Oh, aren’t they gorgeous!’ Elle said, looking down as they gathered beneath his feet. ‘They seem to know you.’

  He shrugged, broke off a corner of his sandwich and dropped it to the mother duck, welcoming the distraction from old memories. Old hurts.

  ‘I found a duckling that had been caught up in a plastic bag when I was a boy. It’s so unnecessary, so annoyingly careless. I couldn’t get anyone else bothered, so I began taking the boat out to clean up the rubbish that had been washed down from further upstream or blown in from the estate. I still do it myself when I have time.’

  ‘No wonder Mrs Duck thinks you’re a pal.’

  ‘She only loves me for my bread and cheese. Try it.’ She tossed in a few pieces of bread and found herself surrounded.

  ‘Cupboard love,’ she agreed, laughing.

  ‘Is there any other kind?’ he said.

  ‘Don’t you know?’ she asked softly.

  ‘Do you want to go for a walk along the bank?’ he offered, needing to move, do something physical to get away from all this emotion spilling out. He didn’t wait for an answer, but got to his feet, held out a hand. ‘I can’t promise an otter or a kingfisher, but if you keep very quiet…’

  She grasped it, pushed her feet into her shoes, and he kept it fast in his as they walked along the bank, knee-deep in grass, late spring flowers. He pointed out a swan’s nest on the far bank. Holes where water voles lived. A grebe and her family bobbing about beneath a weeping willow. Keeping it neutral.

  ‘You clearly love it here. How long have you lived on the estate?’ she queried.

  That was the trouble with talking. It was like tossing a stone in the millpond. It hardly disturbed the surface and yet the tiny ripples it caused were unstoppable.

  ‘I was born here,’ he admitted.

  ‘How wonderful to grow up with so much freedom.’

  ‘I suppose.’ No one had cared what he got up to as long as he didn’t cause any damage. Or disturb the pheasants. It should have been an idyllic childhood. ‘All of the fun, with none of the responsibility.’

  So much for not saying any more.

  ‘The late Baronet had a little midlife crisis fling with a secretary in his London office,’ he explained. Better he told her himself than she learned it from someone else. ‘He installed her in a weekend love-nest in one of the cottages on the edge of the estate.’

  ‘Oh. I see.’ She hadn’t needed the connection spelling out. Nor had she responded with prurient interest or exclaimed over the fact that his father was a Baronet, even if he had been born on the wrong side of the blanket. ‘Didn’t his wife object?’

  ‘She stayed in London and waited for him to get over it, which is probably why my mother played the pregnancy gambit. Bad decision.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Sean. You don’t know that’s what she did.’

  ‘It’s a fair guess.’

  ‘It was a love affair. Babies happen. Believe me, I know. And she chose to have you. Keep you.’

  ‘Of course she did. I was her bargaining chip.’

  ‘You are such a cynic.’

  ‘And you are such a romantic. Sir Hen
ry was never going to leave the daughter of an earl for a typist,’ he said caustically.

  She didn’t say anything, just held his hand a little more tightly.

  Her wordless empathy sparked a warmth that shimmered through him and it took him a moment to gather his thoughts, return to the expressionless recital of his history.

  ‘He let my mother keep the cottage on a grace and favour basis, gave her a settlement to keep her sweet. It was in the days before an abandoned mistress’s first action was to sell her story to the tabloids.’

  ‘Does she still live here?’

  ‘No. She was killed in a road accident when I was ten.’

  ‘Oh, Sean… That’s so tragic.’ And this time she leaned against him so that it was the most natural thing in the world to let go of her hand and slip his arm around her. ‘Tell me about her.’

  ‘I…’ He found himself floundering. No one ever asked him to talk about his mother. The cottage had been cleared when his mother died. Her clothes sent to a charity shop. Her personal belongings put in a box, stored away in the back of a cupboard somewhere. Her life brushed out of existence. ‘She wasn’t a happy woman.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. It must have been horrible for her. Why didn’t she go home to her family?’

  ‘Not all families are like yours, Elle. They disowned her. Me. Sins of the flesh and all that,’ he said gruffly.

  ‘My family doesn’t seem quite so great right now,’ she said. ‘What about your father?’

  ‘Having got away with it once, he thought he had carte blanche but Her Ladyship did not prove so amenable the second time he strayed, rather more publicly, with a high profile fashion model, and he found himself free to remarry. He had three more children with wives number two and three before he broke his neck in a hunting accident.’

  ‘That’s a lot of family.’ She sounded almost envious.

  ‘Hardly family. I spent my early school years at the local primary being beaten up by the village kids for being “posh”. Then, after my mother was killed, I was sent away to boarding school, where everyone took their lead from my half-brothers by treating me as if I was invisible,’ he told her evenly.